Multifunction xerographic products use block based Electronic PreCollation (EPC) memory allocations for scan, mark, and middle function operations (rotation, N-up, etc.). Since some form of data compression is used for most operations that write image data to memory such as, for instance, scanning originals for copying, the amount of memory needed for these operations is not known ahead of time. Therefore, these systems typically use controller interrupts to signal software to dynamically allocate each memory block in real time from a list of free blocks. The real-time overhead for processing these controller interrupts can be undesirable in high performance color reproduction systems. Since many of these systems are developed with single board/single processor architectures, it becomes desirable to maximize system performance and throughput. Moreover, making efficient use of memory is desirable in low cost multifunction document reproduction systems.
Accordingly, what is needed in this art are increasingly sophisticated systems and methods for increasing throughput in a document reproduction device which utilizes Software Image Path (SWIP) processing and which does not have dedicated Electronic Pre-Collation (EPC) memory.